AZ-305 Design data storage solutions Practice Question
A company runs a high-performance computing (HPC) workload that requires low-latency access to large files (hundreds of GB) from thousands of Azure VMs concurrently. The files must be accessible via the NFS protocol and the solution must be a fully managed, POSIX-compliant file system that can scale throughput linearly with capacity. Which Azure storage solution should they choose?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse Azure Blob Storage with NFS support as a fully POSIX-compliant file system, overlooking its lack of full POSIX compliance and linear throughput scaling, or they assume Azure Files premium tier can match the performance and scalability of Azure NetApp Files for HPC workloads.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Azure NetApp Files
Azure NetApp Files is the correct choice because it provides a fully managed, POSIX-compliant NFS file system that can scale throughput linearly with capacity. It is designed for HPC workloads requiring low-latency access to large files from thousands of concurrent VMs, offering sub-millisecond latency and high throughput that increases as you add capacity.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Azure NetApp Files
Why this is correct
Azure NetApp Files is a fully managed, enterprise-grade file service built on NetApp ONTAP, providing both NFS and SMB protocols with POSIX-compliant semantics. It is engineered for high-performance computing, offering sub-millisecond latencies, tens of thousands of IOPS, and multi-GiB/s throughput that scales linearly by adding capacity. It also supports advanced data management features like snapshots, clones, and near-instantaneous resizing, making it the optimal choice for demanding HPC workloads.
- ✗
Azure Files (premium tier)
Why it's wrong here
Premium Azure Files is a cloud file service that supports SMB and, in preview, NFS v3, but it operates with a distributed, multi-tenant architecture that caps performance far below Azure NetApp Files. Even at the premium tier, maximum throughput per file share is roughly 4 GiB/s and maximum IOPS are around 100,000, which cannot sustain the random I/O and sustained throughput demands of a high-performance computing workload. Additionally, NFS support imposes networking constraints and lacks the full POSIX semantic fidelity expected by many HPC applications.
- ✗
Azure Blob Storage with NFS 3.0 support
Why it's wrong here
Azure Blob Storage with NFS 3.0 support is not a true file system but an object storage service exposing an NFS endpoint via the BlobNFS translation layer. This introduces significant latency overhead and limited operation support, such as no support for certain POSIX calls, file locking, or efficient random writes. As a result, it delivers standard-tier performance that is unsuitable for demanding HPC workloads where low latency and high throughput are critical.
- ✗
Azure HPC Cache
Why it's wrong here
Azure HPC Cache is a caching service, not a primary storage system; it sits between compute nodes and existing storage like on-premises NAS or Azure Blob to accelerate access to it. Because it does not provide persistent, self-contained file storage, it cannot fulfill the requirement of a high-performance managed file system for an HPC workload. It is a performance layer to augment existing storage, not a replacement for a consistently high-throughput file system like Azure NetApp Files.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 795 original AZ-305 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AZ-305 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the AZ-305 exam.